A teenager who stabbed two men in a dispute over an unpaid debt has been found guilty after a four-day trial.
Dylan Thorpe had two knives and stabbed former pal Dylan McWhinney, 25, and as well as his friend, 26-year-old fisherman Jordan Megbaghandu.
His trial, at Inverness Sheriff Court, was delayed by a day after he failed to turn up on Thursday.
The court heard that the violence took place in Mill Street in Ullapool on the night of July 31 last year.
Thorpe, 19, and Mr McWhinney first met each other in homeless accommodation in Inverness’s Kenneth Street.
They became good pals and when Thorpe asked his namesake for a loan, it was handed over without any arrangement for repayment, Mr McWhinney told police.
The court heard Mr McWhinney was now deceased but his death was unrelated to the attack on him.
Jury rejected special defence
Mr McWhinney ended up in the high dependency unit of Raigmore Hospital with a punctured lung after suffering bleeding into his chest cavity. He also sustained a stab wound to his left arm which required stitches.
He was discharged on August 3.
Mr Megbaghandu was stabbed in his right arm, also requiring stitches. He told the court he was off his work for months and has been left with a scar.
Thorpe also denied possessing a knife without reasonable excuse. He was convicted of all three charges by a majority verdict after the jury rejected a special defence of self-defence.
Thorpe claimed he was chased and attacked by both men and, fearing for his life, he stabbed them after grabbing the knife from Mr McWhinney.
‘I warned Dylan he had a knife’
He said: “He tried to stab me in the chest but it caught the material of my tee-shirt. I held his arm with the first knife but then he pulled out a second knife, with a six-inch blade and stabbed me in the elbow.
“I warned Dylan that he had a knife but he paid no attention to that.”
He said that the two men were grappling and wrestling when Mr McWhinney was stabbed in the back.
He denied wanting to hurt Thorpe, claiming he wanted both men to talk after they had fallen out in the pub earlier.
He said: “The debt had nothing to do with me. It was not my concern. But I had known Dylan McWhinney for a long time. We were like brothers and what bothered him bothered me.
“I shouldn’t have grabbed Dylan Thorpe. We make some stupid decisions sometimes.”
Mr Megbaghandu added that he “felt responsible” for what happened to his best friend.
Since Thorpe is still a teenager Sheriff Margaret Neilson was obliged to call for a background report.
But she remanded Thorpe in custody until August 30 because of his failure to appear this week.
This article originally appeared on the Evening Express website. For more information, read about our new combined website.